A pretty blonde tourist has told how she and a teenage girlfriend were invited to spend an entire flight larking about in the cockpit on a previous Malaysian Airlines flight with a co-pilot of the now missing flight MH370.

The two girls took pictures and were entertained after they were picked out of the check-in queue to join the pilots for the flight from the holiday island of Phuket to Kuala Lumpur.

In an incredible lax in security, it was revealed pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid and his colleague broke Malaysian Airline rules when they invited passengers Jonti Roos and Jaan Maree to join them in the cabin for the one-hour flight to KL. Ms Rose told how she and her friend sat in two spare jump seats for the whole journey, including take-off and landing.

Ms Roos, a South African who is travelling around Australia, told Channel 9 television’s A Current Affair programme that she and her South African friend Ms Maree posed for pictures with the pilots, who smoked cigarettes during the in-flight hospitality.

“Throughout the entire flight they were talking to us and they were actually smoking throughout the flight which I don’t think they’re allowed to do,” Ms Roos told the TV show last night. But she insisted the pilots were in control of the aircraft at all times.

“At one stage they were pretty much turned around the whole time in their seats talking to us.

“They were so engaged in conversation that he took my friends hand and he was looking at her palm and said ‘your hand is very creased. That means you’re a very creative person’ and commented on her nail polish.”

Mr Hamid identified the South African natives as they waited in the boarding queue at Phuket airport in December 2011. As they took the seats on the aircraft, an air steward approached the women and invited them to join the pilots in the cockpit.

Despite pictures exposing the gross misconduct of the distracted pilots, Ms Roos said she wasn’t concerned for her safety: “I did feel safe. I don’t think there was one instance where I felt threatened or I felt that they didn’t know what they were doing,” she said.

"The whole time I felt they were very friendly. I felt they were very competent in what they were doing.

“We wished they would stop smoking because it is such a confined space. But you can’t exactly tell a pilot to stop smoking.”

She said the pilots reportedly wanted Ms Roos and Ms Maree to change their travel arrangements and extend their stay in Kuala Lumpur and join them on a night on the town.

Related stories

Ms Roos said she was shocked to learn Mr Hamid was at the helm of the ill-fated Malaysian Airline flight.

“I thought it was crazy. I was just completely shocked. I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “When I saw all his friends and family posting on his all my heart really broke for them and my heart broke for the family of the passengers. It’s just a really sad story."